The Animal Welfare Coalition in New Mexico is an excellent non-profit who are working with our Animal Balance teams to provide high quality, high volume spay/neuter services (HQHVSN) in Las Vegas, which is in north east New Mexico. It is not the glitzy place with a hilarious fake Elvis, it is a small, pretty town with a traditional square with old brick buildings around it and a stunning historic hotel. It is so idyllic in fact that movies have even been filmed here. AWC have already performed 8 clinics with the Animal Balance team and are making huge positive changes locally for the animals and their families.
At one of the HQHVSN clinics in Vegas, I was told there was a van that belonged to AWC that they didn’t need any longer. I was asked if Animal Balance would be interested in using it. After checking it out and realizing how big it was, I knew AB could not use it, but perhaps Tails of Love in Arizona could as they are covering such a vast area.
Tails of Love (ToL) is an incredible nonprofit that works to provide veterinary care for the dogs and cats of the White Mountain Apache Tribe (WMAT). They serve the communities in the Whiteriver area of NE AZ. The two groups did not know one another; however, AB has been working with ToL and the WMAT for 3 years and AWC for about a year, in both cases increasing the capacity for spay/neuter and teaching how to create their own HQHVSN clinics.
The region in AZ where the WMAT live is the worst in the country for a zoonotic disease called Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF). It is more prevalent here than anywhere else. In addition, they have had positive cases of Rabies in both foxes and a dog in the past year. Both diseases kill humans, so it is a very fragile situation.
In response to this, AB requested 3,000 rabies vaccines from Greater Good Charities, which they kindly sent and we took out to ToL when we deployed for a clinic. Everyone at Tails of Love has hundreds of vaccines in their fridges! They also have anti-parasite treatments, which were kindly donated by Dr. Ford and Innovetive Vet Care. As RMSF is spread via ticks, it is imperative that the dogs be treated with anti-parasite treatments each month. As Rabies has been detected, it is crucial that the dogs are vaccinated against it, plus parvo, distemper and leptospirosis, which come in a combo vaccine that Petco Love kindly donated.
All of these organizations have understood the fragility of the situation and kindly donated these critical medications and vaccinations. ToL, along with the WMAT Animal Control, the RMSF Dept. and Animal Balance have been providing these preventative medications to the animals during t clinics, but we also wanted to find a way to distribute them between our HQHVSN clinic, therefore further protecting the dogs and the people.
As there was such a need, we suggested that AWC give the van to ToL and AB pay for it. This was agreed upon and today the Econoline van was handed over to Lance of ToL by Jacque of AWC.
This van will now serve the Apache Nation and help to prevent the loss of life of humans and dogs. All of these nonprofits came together to make this possible, across multiple states. It was a beautiful exchange today which will help protect the entire community of human and non-human animals.
Emma Clifford
Animal Balance
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